Did you hear that? What? No? Me neither. That's the sound of baseball not being played today. With the NBA in exhibition mode and the pro football season a quarter of the way through but stuck on the slowest day of the week, the professional team sports world has hit the ultimate Wednesday hump: zero meaningful games played. (Sorry, NBA, a handful of exhibitions don't count, especially considering that the Memphis Grizzlies, in Spain to capitalize on Pau Gasol's popularity, actually lost to Unicaja yesterday.)Navy did knock off Pitt 48-45 in OT in tonight's wildly entertaining and incredibly defenseless NCAA game, but dp hardly knew what to do on a day without baseball. As we await tomorrow's resumption of the playoffs with the National League Championship Series, it's worth noting that NeutralMilk, whose predictions based on closer songs correlated with dp's perfect round of Divisional Playoff picks, has departed from dp's ALCS and World Series pick, the Boston Red Sox. It seems he has misread Jonathan Papelbon's occasional use of "Wild Thing" (seen here in the video at the bottom of the post). He equates Papelbon entering to "Wild Thing" with the Patriots' stealing of opponents' signals. Further, because this song is inherently Indian territory (it did originate as Rick Vaughn's song in Major League) and is current Cleveland closer Joe Borowski's full-time anthem, he chooses Cleveland to win both the ALCS and the World Series. However, dp knows this test to be a false positive. In reality, Papelbon has actually negated Cleveland's edge (by employing laser tag tactics of holding up a mirror to reflect back enemy fire,) and the BoSox will go all the way. Better check your B-sample, NeutralMilk.
Speaking of drug tests, the sad saga of Marion Jones' disgrace continues to unfold.
When the confirmation of Jones' long-suspected drug use broke last Friday, Scoop Jackson spoke for many when he lamented how his girl Marion crushed his heart. Jones admitted in District Court that she not only lied to federal agents in her 2003 grand jury testimony in the BALCO case, but she also lied about her involvement in a fraudulent check-cashing scheme involving her agent, another former coach, and former boyfriend Tim Montgomery.
Victor Conte, BALCO's founder, has been saying for years that Jones used performance-enhancing drugs before and after her amazing performance in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where she won five medals, including three gold. Yet even the gold standard has proved counterfeit, and now Jones has returned those medals to the International Olympic Committtee. It turns out that Conte was right all along.
Jones went so far as to file a $25 million libel lawsuit against Conte in 2004. (It was later settled out of court.) For a woman who has never failed a drug test (though she narrowly escaped with a false-positive for EPO in June 2006 when her B-sample came back negative) and has always categorically denied drug use, dp can't help but wonder why Jones finally decided to come clean about playing dirty. Many, including ESPN.com's Patrick Hruby, think that she's a pathological liar who "leaked" her admission in a letter to family and friends only to try to put a positive spin on an inevitable booking by the Feds. In this letter, Jones claims she thought that her coach, Trevor Graham, was giving her flaxseed oil, not realizing until years later that she'd actually been taking "the clear," a designer steroid at the center of the BALCO case.
Was the evidence so overwhelming against her that she had no choice except to craft one last convenient lie in a desperate attempt to save a bit of face? Or is it possible that a singularly focused world-class sprinter just did what her coach told her to do and didn't ask too many questions about the little drop of liquid on her tongue to help her "recover" faster after workouts? Jones, just one of about two dozen professional athletes to testify in the BALCO case, is certainly not a chemist, and probably couldn't tell the difference between a placebo and a painkiller, much less between a permissible "supplement" and an undetectable but illegal steroid. Barry Bonds also claimed under oath that he believed "the clear" to be flaxseed oil. Could this be a corroboration of truth, or is it again simply that smug wink of plausible deniability?
Or is it possible that there really is no real "truth" in a cutthroat competitive landscape in which individual success is only possible through a supreme self-confidence that borders on self-delusion? I mean, how realistic is it to think you are the fastest person on earth? It's preposterous, except perhaps for a very select few. Is it so surprising then to think that one of these megalomaniacs may actually reject, distort, qualify, or ignore anything which threatens her righteous faith in her talent and ability? By sheer force of will, can athletes like Jones and Bonds simply rationalize shady decisions?
The only certainty we have is that Jones, for one, couldn't live with her own guilt. In mourning her fall, we can only wonder whether countless other superstars like Lance Armstrong and Roger Clemens have benefited from a little extra boost as well. As more and more incriminating evidence mounts, it's getting more and more difficult to give our heroes the benefit of the doubt. As for Bonds, a lawyer familiar with his case ominously speculates that prosecutors will now shift their focus to investigating whether he committed perjury and tax evasion.
Although ESPN.com's Bomani Jones has a few ideas to consider on this dark sports Wednesday, dp can do no more than to wish original FLICKster Brett Favre a happy 38th birthday.
